The police have warned companies not to pay any ransoms demanded of them by cyber criminals.

They say a criminal gang working on-line is continuing to try to extort money from companies and industries across Northern Ireland.

The gang threatens the companies with a threat of carrying out a cyber attack on the business including shutting down the web service and computer networks.

DCI Dougie Grant is taking on the online criminals

Detective Chief Inspector Dougie Grant from the Cyber Crime Centre said: "The ransom demands to date have carried the threat of a cyber attack being inflicted on the company and this attack may take the form of a DDOS attack - a Distributed Denial of Service - which may disrupt or shut down company web services or networks.

"PSNI, working with partner agencies, are investigating these threats and we would like to provide advice to any company who is targeted."

Report the incident to PSNI via 101 or the PSNI Cyber Incident Reporting Portal on the PSNI website,

Preserve any email communications including email headers,

Record the date, time and details of any communications or network activity,